Interviews Archives

Unless you've been completely out of the gaming sphere in the past year, chances are you've heard something about indie platformer sensation
Shovel Knight. Started as a Kickstarter project a couple of years ago, the game has since grown to garner the love of gamers all over, gathering enough critical acclaim to win over 70 Game of the Year awards in 2014 and enough fan favoritism to elevate the eponymous knight to Smash character contender status - in some fans' minds, that is. It is set to release on the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, and PS Vita later this year alongside the brand new free DLC pack, Plague of Shadows — among other surprises. The love for this new wave retro platformer is sure to grow over the next year.

In between working on the aforementioned expansions and
debuting footage of the highly-anticipated DLC at PAX East, Yacht Club Games, the studio behind Shovel Knight, kindly took the time to answer some of our questions about what the future holds for the title, and the franchise.

Coming fast off the success of their superb indie platformer Shovel Knight, Yacht Club Games recently revealed the first DLC pack for the title, set for release sometime in the second quarter of this year. We had the good fortune to chat with one of the people behind the runaway hit, and we learned, among other things, that one of the most enjoyable fan features will be maintained in Plague of Shadows.

Yesterday on our Nintendo Week podcast, we sat down with ArtsyOmni, the extremely talented artist behind the recent Rayman in Smash Bros. hoax, to discuss the hoax: why he made it, why the internet was so captivated, and what he plans to do in the future. He's beginning a new series on YouTube called "Smashified," where viewers can choose which video game characters he should draw in the Super Smash Bros. art style, so that we can see what all of our favorite gaming icons would look like if they were a part of Smash. Head past the jump to see the interview!

After the end of the era of iconic gaming magazine Nintendo Power, a new publications stepped up, not to take its place, but continue its legacy. Over two years later, this brave new periodical is going more strongly than ever into its third year. The mastermind behind this endeavor, Lucas M. Thomas (former editor-at-large of IGN's Nintendo Team), was kind of enough to answer some of the burning questions the Nintendo and Nintendo Power fans here at Gamnesia have, and he delved into the inner working of Nintendo Force, the opportunities it provides fans, its relationship to Nintendo, and more.

For nearly a decade, Dan Adelman helped bring content to Nintendo's digital distribution systems. NintendOn recently got the chance to sit down with Dan Adelman to discuss some questions that have been on some consumers' minds for a while. One of these questions regarded the relatively poor installation base for the Wii U and who's to blame. Adelman replied that a common belief that this falls on Reggie Fils-Aime as the president of Nintendo of America is false.

Dan Adelman has been a key player at Nintendo of America for nearly a decade. As head of digital content and development Adelman was the man in charge of Nintendo's indie program, reaching out to make sure that games like
Shovel Knight, Cave Story, and World of Goo make it to Nintendo eShop. Recently, he announced that he had decided to part ways with Nintendo, but his work with indie developers continues.

Adelman continues to help indie developers with the business and marketing end of the industry, and recently announced Axiom Verge as his first post-Nintendo project. We caught up with him for an interview and discussed life at Nintendo, life after Nintendo, the state of the indie market, and more. Check it all out by clicking below!

Throughout the 2000's, Armor Games dominated the Flash games industry. One of their most valuable developers was Antony Lavelle, who created a slew of great series such as Indestructotank, SHIFT, and the narrative platformer K.O.L.M. Though originally intended as a trilogy, Antony left Armor Games after the second installment. Now, however, he's aiming to finish off the story with a grand remake of everything K.O.L.M. up to this point, along with the final chapter, through Kickstarter.

With fond memories of
K.O.L.M. prancing through my head, I asked Antony to answer a few questions. His answers give some incredible insight into the struggles and successes of an independent developer.

Indie studio Skymap Games is hard at work on
Bacon Man: An Adventure, an upcoming action-platformer inspired by Mega Man X and Earthworm Jim. We at Gamnesia were lucky enough to interview Neal Laurenza, Managing Director of the studio, and find out all about this gorgeous, action-packed meatfest.

We
recently posted a story about Paperbound, an extraordinarily unique fighting game coming soon to PC (and consoles if it hits the proper stretch goals on its Kickstarter campaign). Those who have played the demo know that Paperbound is an exciting, frantic, scream-at-your-friends-until-you-lose-you-voice thrill ride of a game, but we had the opportunity to talk about the game one-on-one with Dan Holbert, the game's lead designer.

A year ago we saw a teaser for a musical tribute to the Super Smash Bros. series called Harmony of Heroes. Word on the project has been mostly silent since its announcement, but we met up with Darren Kerwin, the album's director, to discuss their progress.

Kerwin says that Harmony of Heroes will feature a wide variety of musical styles with about twice as much music as the team's last project, Harmony of a Hunter: 101% Run, which supplements the original Harmony of a Hunter to form the ultimate Metroid fan album. A few months ago, the team released a new trailer for Harmony of Heroes to show off four sneak peeks at some of the album's music.

To watch the trailer and learn more about Harmony of Heroes, head past the jump!

During SXSW,
I was able to stop by the Hyperkin Booth and experience the hotly anticipated
RetroN 5. For those of you who are unaware, the RetroN 5 is a home console that
plays classic NES, SNES, Genesis and Game Boy cartridges. Not only that, the
console outputs and upscales via HDMI and comes with Bluetooth controllers. I
sat down with Chris Gallizzi from Hyperkin to ask him a few questions regarding
their upcoming console.

Gears For Breakfast's
A Hat in Time hit Kickstarter last year with the promise to breath new life into a genre of 3D platformer-collectathons that had been pretty much stagnant since the glory days of Rareware back on the Nintendo 64. A lot of people apparently believed in that promise, and the game's original goal of $30,000 was surpassed by nearly ten times, leaving A Hat in Time with a sterling $296,360 in crowdfunding and all of its stretch goals smashed.

Just after the madly successful Kickstarter campaign's conclusion, Gamnesia had the chance to speak with one of the game's developers and pick his brain on various A Hat in Time and game design related topics. But now that it's been more than a few months and A Hat in Time's alpha build has been released to those who backed a high enough tier, I decided it was about time we chatted with Gears For Breakfast again, this time on how everything's progressing, the development process, Grant Kirkhope, the potential for console releases, and more.

Recently, the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter has produced a wealth of interesting and exciting games. Mighty No. 9, Scraps, A Hat in Time, FTL: Faster Than Light
and more are all made possible by people around the world supporting
up-and-coming studios. One of these tantalizing projects is Varia Games'
ReVeN, a Metroid-inspired science fiction adventure. As the
Kickstarter draws to a close, however, a lot of people still have
questions surrounding it. I was lucky enough to talk to Austin Morgan
from Varia Games about
ReVeN, the Kickstarter, and Metroid.

As the creator of Braid and currently the head developer of The Witness, Jonathan Blow is easily among the most famous and renowned indie developers out there, so spending several paragraphs on telling you who he is probably wouldn't be the most productive thing in the world. If you don't know, Google him, and you'll find a billion other articles to tell you just that. But it's that second game I listed, The Witness—that's the enigma, isn't it?

We know it's hyped, gorgeous as all hell, led by an important developer, and of the insufficiently descriptive "puzzle-adventure" genre, but as for what it actually is... a lot of people are still scratching their heads. We got that in-game trailer a year ago, and there's been a scattering of interviews and videos since, but I still consistently hear the "it looks pretty, but what is it?" remark. And that's where Mr. Blow comes in.

See, I had the opportunity to pick the guy's brain a bit, get a little more insight on why we should be excited for this game about which we've heard so much and yet so little. Let's look at the "why"s behind The Witness. You can read all about it after the jump.

Back when I first mentionedNight in the Woods, it was the day before Halloween and the game in question was having a jolly old time rocketing past its Kickstarter goal of $50,000. It eventually landed comfortably at $209,375, and the team, Infinite Fall, has since then released the video game equivalent of a short story involving its characters called "Longest Night." Night in the Woods is a pretty, quirky-looking game from indie developers Alec Holowka (Aqauria) and Scott Benson (new to this), and, long story short, I had the chance to talk with the two of them about it.

Alec and Scott have to be two of the nicest people to which I've ever had the pleasure of speaking, so much so that my instinct is to refer to them by their first names. This is truly a case of two cool guys with a vision that just want to make something awesome together. Alec even lives in a house of people entirely dedicated to indie game development, simply called "IndieHouse - Vancouver," so you know he's got a pretty strong passion for this stuff.

Anyway, one of the topics we covered was one of Night in the Woods' big design philosophies, that all development choices are based around how they impact the story, and you can head past the jump to read all about it!